An astonishing friend of the Compiegne Sisters

Today is the feast day of such a truly astonishing French saint with strong Carmelite connections that I can’t resist blogging about her - St Julie Billiart (1751-1816) – because her story is so extraordinary and it is worth reading at greater length than the paragraph I normally restrict myself to.  ‘By the age of seven she had memorized the whole catechism. When she was eight, she was already gathering poor children and teaching them religion and how to read and write. While children made their first communion at age thirteen or fourteen, Fr. Dangicourt, let her make it privately when she was nine. She made a vow of chastity when she was fourteen and at the age of twenty obtained permission to receive the Eucharist every day.  As a child, Julie enrolled herself in the Confraternity of the Sacred Heart, promising to pray from 2 to 3 in front of the Blessed Sacrament on Good Friday. Julie’s older sister Madeleine was almost blind, and her younger brother Louis was sickly and crippled. Julie helped care for them and for other needy people in the village. When thieves stole most of the goods in the Billiart store, the family faced poverty. For six summers Julie worked as a harvester and taught religion to the other workers. The rest of the year, walking or on horseback Julie travelled to other towns to sell lace and fabric that remained.  The Carmelite sisters at Compiegne were her friends, and they helped her refine her needlework skills. They also introduced her to the writing of St. Teresa of Avila. These were the sisters who were taken to the scaffold in the French Revolution.  When Julie was twenty-three, she was with her father in the store when a rock crashed through a window and a bullet nearly missed him. This incident triggered a nervous reaction in Julie which led to her complete paralysis, which she endured until she was fifty-three years old and cured miraculously during a novena to the Sacred Heart.  From her bed, Julie prepared children for First Communion and served as spiritual director to well-to-do ladies. She also spent long hours in prayer. People called her the Saint who Smiles. Fr. Dangicourt brought Julie Communion every day and gave her a cat, which much later a zealous priest had her kill as an act of penance. Julie suffered other ailments besides this long-lasting one that was accompanied by insomnia, nausea, and convulsions. As a child, she began to lose her sight. Her mother took her and her sister Madeleine to Lyon where an icon was known for healing vision problems. Both girls were cured. Many times during the course of her life, Julie succumbed to diseases like malaria.  During the French Revolution, from her sickbed Julie arranged hiding places for loyal priests and refused to see the parish schematic priest. A friend, knowing that Julie was in danger, invited her to stay at her chateau. Julie’s sixteen-year-old niece accompanied her and stayed with her for twenty-two years. Revolutionaries came after Julie, threating to burn her at a bonfire, she and her niece narrowly escaped hidden under hay. 

Julie’s Vision

One Good Friday at this time, Julie had a vision in which she saw Jesus on the cross surrounded by women in strange clothing. A voice said, “Behold the daughters whom I give to you in this institute, which will be marked by the cross.” Julie saw sisters whom she recognized later and the one who would be her companion and support was revealed to her, namely Francoise.  Francoise Blin de Bourdon was the opposite of Julie, who was five year older than she. She was a highly educated aristocrat who had been presented at Versailles, the court of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and had become friends with his sister. Like Julie, she was a victim of the Revolution. Imprisoned with family members, she was slated to be guillotined on July 29. Fortunately, the Reign of Terror ended the day before. Francoise went to live at her brother’s mansion, Hotel Blin. She intended to become a Carmelite. Julie arrived two months later.  At first Francoise felt uncomfortable with Julie because she could hardly understand her labored speech, but gradually the two became friends, friends for life. As Julie once said, “We’re like two bees under one bonnet.”  In 1799 the two women, Julie’s niece, and their chaplain Father Thomas were forced to flee again and went to Bettencourt. There the priest helped Julie speak. With the coming of Napoleon, Catholics were allowed to practice their faith again after the seven-year-hiatus. Julie, Francoise and Fr. Thomas began teaching at their house.  When Fr. Joseph Varin, superior of the Fathers of the Faith as the Jesuits were called witnessed Julie teaching from her portable chair, he was very impressed. Eventually he persuaded her to establish a religious community with Francoise. On Feb, 2, 1804, Julie, Francoise, and a woman named Catherine made a vow of chastity, promised to devote themselves to the education of orphans and teacher formation. They renewed their consecration to the Sacred Heart and to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. At age fifty-two, Julie became Mother of this community that had Our Lady as patroness. That day Fr. Varin gave each sister a medal of the Our Lady of Guadalupe. This medal is visible in St. Julie’s portrait. (See top photo.) Soon after, Catherine became ill and left.

Julie and Francoise taught catechism classes at the Amiens cathedral.  In 1804 they began giving a month-long mission there. On the day after the mission closed, Fr. Enfantin, appointed Julie’s spiritual director, invited her to pray the novena “for someone” that led to her cure.  Freed from paralysis, Julie went from town to town giving missions.  On October 15, 1805, Julie and three other sisters pronounced vows according to a longer rule of life. Julie became Sister Mary Ignatia, but because the Jesuits had been suppressed, Fr. Varin advised that she go by the name Julie. Francoise became Sister St. Joseph.  Julie was innovative in planning her community. French communities were cloistered, but her sisters would be like Jesus, out in the world spreading the faith. They would be contemplatives in action. They would not pray the Divine Office together and there would not be two classes of sisters, choir sisters who prayed and lay sisters. All would be equal. They participated in daily Mass, meditated for an hour in the morning and a half hour in the evening before the Blessed Sacrament. At noon they made an examination of conscience. Daily they prayed the rosary and read from a spiritiual book. Each evening they prayed an Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus together, and on the Thursdays before First Fridays they made a holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament. Every year each sister made a silent eight-day retreat.  On February 2, 1806 during instructions on the Presentation, Julie began singing the Nunc Dimittis. After the line “a light of revelation to the Gentiles, she stopped, and staring at the crucifix when into a trance. Later she told Francoise, “God let me know that we will carry the light of the gospels to all nations. We are not to be liminted to one diocese of country.” That is why she would exhort her sisters, “Have a heart as wide as the world.”’ [Courtesy of the website of the Catholic Apostolate Center] St Julie Billiart has gone down in history as the co-founder of the Sisters of Notre Dame of Namur. 

Intercessions

Cancer: Brian Davis, Bernard (and wife Angela caring for him), Jacqui, Fr Jon Bielowski (Plymouth Diocese), Catherine, Alex (43 with five children), Sister Daranee Teapthong

Illness:  Hilary Solomon, Katy Keeling

Siena, Elara – sick children

David OCDS – housebound

Sophia – blind infant

Grace – troubling ailments, job difficulties, family (deceased mother and health of father)

Mark – brain infection

Michael – youngster with occult influences

Defence of the unborn and the elderly

We are asked to pray for the Diocese of Chiang Mai and Northern Thailand, as the Northern Mission celebrates its centenary. The process of selecting a new bishop continues.